WISE, Va. – The Concord University women's basketball team secured its first home conference tournament game since the 2011-2012 season by defeating UVa.-Wise 65-48 Saturday afternoon in Mountain East Conference action at the Prior Center.
Concord (8-20, 8-14 MEC) and UVa.-Wise (9-19, 8-14) finished tied in the standings for eighth, but the Mountain Lions hold the tiebreaker over the Cavaliers by virtue of sweeping them in the regular season.
CU and UVa.-Wise will tip at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday in the first round of the Mountain East Conference Tournament at the Carter Center.
Two scoring runs to start each half aided the winning effort for the Mountain Lions.
Concord opened up the game on a 16-6 run as sophomore guard
Olivia Morgan scored the first seven points for the Mountain Lions. Against the Cavaliers at home, CU opened up the game on a 22-2 run, but unlike that game, UVa-Wise didn't go away quietly Saturday.
UVa.-Wise answered with a 15-5 run to tie the score at 21-21 with 3:54 left in the first half. At halftime, CU held a narrow 27-25 lead.
After the teams traded buckets over the first five minutes of the second half, the Mountain Lions went on an 11-0 run to open up a 45-34 advantage over the Cavaliers. In the run, senior forward
Rachel Artrip scored five of her seven points and junior forward
Kylie Molisee chipped in four of her 14 points.
And this time CU's run wasn't answered by UVa.-Wise as the Cavaliers could only get the Mountain Lions' lead under 10 points on two more occasions as Concord went on to win by 17 points.
Molisee and senior guard
Melea Smith led the Mountain Lions with 14 points each as the duo combined for 20 of CU's 38 second-half points. Molisee collected third double-double of the season by adding 10 rebounds.
Senior forward
Jacqueline Kestner notched her 11
th double-double of the season by recording 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Freshman guard
Danielle Catron played one of her best all-around games in the Maroon and Gray off the bench by scoring 10 points and pulling down a career-high seven rebounds, more than double her previous personal-best of three boards.
Concord shot 45.6 percent (26-for-57) while it held UVa.-Wise to 28.6 percent (18-for-63), the best field goal defense effort of the year for the Mountain Lions. It also marked the first time CU has held its opponent under 30 percent shooting since December 31, 2011 when they held WVU Tech to 26.7 percent shooting.
CU owned advantages in points in the paint (28-20), points off turnovers (19-10) and steals (9-5).
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